


Disgusting

by dreamfall



Category: Johnny Tremain - Esther Forbes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-24
Updated: 2008-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamfall/pseuds/dreamfall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the dance, Johnny confronts Rab about the girls' lack of reaction to his hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Disgusting

**Author's Note:**

> My apologies for not quite matching the tone of the original--I only grabbed the pinch hit at the last minute, haven't read this for nearly 15 years, and while I found part of it online, it wasn't quite the same as reading straight through and getting into the feel of it. I hope it suits!
> 
> Written for bethctg

 

 

Johnny threw himself down on his cot and stared up at the ceiling, distant in the pale moonlight that slipped into the loft here and there. They'd have to do some patching before winter struck full on, but he wasn't able to focus on the concern.

"Sleeping like that?" Rab asked amused, lighting the lamp on the table between their cots and smiling down at him.

He rolled his eyes and got up, kicking off his boots and the buttons of his shirt giving way willingly to his left hand, where once they would have driven him to distraction. Then he paused and asked the question he'd been wanting to ask for hours. "Why were they different? The girls, I mean--when I danced with them they didn't even seem to notice my hand. Not one of them gave it a second glance or pulled away or _anything_. It's--everyone else--girls, I mean, they think it's disgusting--tell me not to touch them," he said, Isannah's betrayal as fresh in his mind as the day she had shrieked at him not to touch her again, not even washed away by her kissing it after the trial.

"It's you who put the idea in their heads," said Rab, pulling off his shirt. "You know you usually go about with that hand in your pocket, looking as if you had an imp of Hell hidden away, and the someone asks you and you pull it out with a slow flourish , as if you said, `This is the most disgusting thing you ever saw.' No wonder you scare everybody. Tonight happens you just forgot."

"But it is disgusting," he pointed out, shaking out his shirt and dropping it over the back of his chair, and then lifting the hand to try to look at it dispassionately, the shiny red flesh and the bulge on the side where a separate thumb should have been.

Rab folded his shirt thoughtfully and set it in his trunk, then moved over and took Johnny's hand.

Surprise made him try to jerk away, but Rab held him firmly, and then tugged gently towards the lamp. He sat on his bed, and Johnny had little choice but to sit on his own or stand awkwardly bent over. He fisted the scarred hand defensively, and set his jaw, staring at his friend, wondering if now was when he was going to turn on him.

But Rab just held his wrist in one hand and gently stroked the other over Johnny's palm and fisted fingers, finger tips lingering slightly, coaxing Johnny into relaxing it.

A muscle jumping in his jaw, Johnny resisted for a long moment, but there was no cruelty in Rab's face, and equally little disgust, and at the third stroke, the hand opened as though of its own will, and Rab's fingers stroked lightly down the awful scars, lingering on the crease where the thumb and first finger were fused together. Slowly, Johnny relaxed the tension leaving his jaw, though his eyes remained locked on the older boy's face.

Finally, still stroking the damaged hand, Rab's eyes lifted to his own. "This is not disgusting," he stated, and there was no uncertainty, no dishonesty in his face, just frankness and care, and he touched the hand without flinching.

"It is, though. It's ugly--and not just that, but shameful, because it's God's punishment for working on the Sabbath. That's what my master said."

Rab's eyes suddenly flared, and he gently re-folded Johnny's hand, wrapping both his own around it. "Your master was a good man and devout, but I'd say even he don't know God's will. It's not disgusting," he repeated, then set it on Johnny's knee, stood back up, and splashed his face and arms with water before pulling on his nightshirt and crawling into his cot.

Johnny just watched him, then, slowly, got up himself and went through his own routine mechanically before lying back down and blowing out the little lamp.

"'Night," Rab murmured as they were plunged into darkness.

"Sleep well," he responded. It was far later than it usually was when they headed for bed, since the party had lasted long into the night, but he found himself unable to sleep, despite hearing Rab's soft, even breathing a familiar sound close enough that if they both reached out, their fingers would brush. "Rab?" he said softly.

"Hmm?" came a sleepy murmur of response.

He hesitated, not sure what he wanted to say now that he'd started.

"What is it, Johnny?" Rab asked, sounding a little more awake, not quite concerned, but decidedly curious.

"Could you teach me to dance?" he asked in a rush, the first thing that came to mind to fill the expectant silence, though he was certain it hadn't been what he'd _meant_ to ask.

"But you already dance!" Rab replied, a chuckle in his voice.

"Not like you. You seem--you love it, don't you?"

"Mmm," he agreed. "Like riding."

And that made his brain jump again, and he thought it was closer to what he'd meant to say this time, though when the words came out they sounded all wrong: "Am I like Goblin?"

"What?" Rab demanded, the laughter overflowing now.

Johnny felt his face heating up, but it didn't matter in the dark, nobody could see. And Rab laughing at him didn't make him as angry as other people doing it. "I mean--you care about him."

The laughter broke off as though cut with a knife. "I--yes," Rab agreedcautiously.

"But you didn't have time--and when I came, you taught me to--to take care of him. To reassure him. And I just--I wonder sometimes if you're going to run out of time fixing me and--and train someone else to do it."

There was a soft series of familiar creaks that indicated Rab sitting up. "I'm not--No. I'm not trying to fix you. And I definitely--" his voice broke off a little and when he spoke again, there was a note of almost hysteria in it, unfamiliar and fascinating, "I definitely don't think of you as a horse," he said. 

"Okay," Johnny said uncertainly.

After a minute, he heard Rab lie back down. And he almost didn't hear the quiet: "Maybe it would be better if I did."

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing--go to sleep, Johnny."

He frowned at the shadowy ceiling, trying to figure out what it was he hadn't been able to verbalize. And what had possessed him to ask Rab to teach him to _dance_ of all things? Just like Rab said, he already danced. But despite the oddness of it, when he fell asleep, it was to dreams of Rab teaching him, holding him as he'd held the girls, grinning with that same vibrant energy, and never seeming to notice the maimed hand. 

 


End file.
